A First Meeting
by Gaia 479
Summary: This is just a one-time, one-shot, about a chance meeting between two high-school-aged people that we all know and love. From the archives... came across it this morning and it made me laugh. Hope it does for you too. FoxownsBones, not me.


A group of boys wearing their football jackets walked down the hallway towards the cafeteria. They were laughing and being obnoxious, other kids parted the crowd as they walked past. No one wanted to get in their way.

One of the boys turned to his friend as they went past a tallish, thin girl getting something out of her locker. She ignored them as most of the group went past her, but she had grabbed the attention of one of them.

"Hey Paul, watch this..." The one boy approached her from behind and pushed her armload of books so that they crashed to the floor.

When she bent over to pick them up, he kicked them further away and laughed hysterically. Paul laughed too and gave him a high five.

"Welcome to Philly, new kid..." The boy said in a snide voice as he continued down the hallway. The laughter followed him from a few of the other boys as they turned the corner to another hallway.

When it seemed they had gone, the girl went to pick up her books when she noticed one of the football players had come back around the corner.

She sighed and wondered what else they were going to do to her.

To her surprise, the boy bent over to pick up the books that had travelled the farthest, and brought them back to her.

She accepted them with quiet thanks, and wondered why the boy lingered. Eventually she looked up at him, and the first thing she noticed was the depth of his dark brown eyes. He smiled at her.

"Hey, don't mind those guys... sometimes they can be total jerks."

She wasn't sure how to respond, she didn't normally associate with the jocks.

"Yeah, I noticed that. Aren't you one of them?" She noticed his smile fade.

"Not really, but they are my team-mates. We have to stick together, if you know what I mean." He tried to get her to smile, but his normally charming smile was having no effect on her. She seemed a little cold to him.

"No, I don't really know what you mean." She gathered her books back under her arm and started walking to her next class.

He walked beside her for awhile, trying to get her to talk.

"Aren't you the kid who transferred from Ohio?"

"Yes." Was all she replied.

He tried again.

"What's your name?"

She looked at him and wondered why he was expressing so much interest in her. His type usually had nothing to do with her type.

"My name is Temperance."

He smiled again.

"That's a different name. Why did your parents call you that?"

She wished more than anything that she could ask them, but she didn't know where they were. They had been missing for over a year. She didn't answer him.

"Well, my name is Seeley, but most people just call me Booth. I kind of hate my name." He laughed, hoping to get some kind of reaction from her. Anything.

She finally turned to him and gave him a little smile. He thought she looked pretty when she smiled.

"It would seem that we have something in common then."

"Well, Temperance, I've gotta go, but maybe I'll see you around?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, maybe."

If the family she was staying with decided to keep her for awhile, maybe she could get to know him better. He seemed nice, despite his outward jock appearance, and his choice of friends.

She dared a glance over her shoulder in the direction from which he had left her side and saw him now walking beside some other girl. Their voices carried down the hall and she heard what the girl asked him.

"Who was that?"

"New girl."

"Why were you talking to her, I heard she was a foster kid. She's a nobody..."

"I don't know. She seemed nice; maybe you should give her a chance..."

Their voices were cut off as Temperance turned the corner. She was glad because she now had tears in her eyes and she didn't want Seeley, no, Booth, to see them.

She pushed her hurt feelings down to her core and wished more than anything that she didn't feel anything at all. Things would be so much easier that way.

A week later she transferred to a new school in a new city and never thought of the boy again.

**

**

Or did she?


End file.
